NEWS & LETTERS, August - September 2008
Does detention await us all?
DETROIT--Two women who came to Centro Obrero/Latino Worker Center told us of a neighbor on Cecil Street where ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents came, took the couple and left their small children in the house. A neighbor still has the children and the couple does not have any contact with them or the neighbor who has them. The children witnessed this, as did the neighbors, but no word of their whereabouts had been forthcoming as of three days after their disappearance with ICE agents.
The next day the women were called by the Wayne County social workers in the jail and told their visits were cancelled because the jail cannot accommodate the volume of family members who had scheduled visits with their loved ones. Deportation day is Tuesday, and in the case of the woman whose husband is being shipped out, she needs his signature on the children's passport applications in order for them to have their documents which, theoretically will guarantee their rights as U.S. citizens. No children's passports will be processed without both parents' signatures.
A man called me this morning and told me his son went to get dog food on Monday night and did not return. This morning he called his father and let him know that ICE got him on his way home from the store and locked him up without a phone call. They impounded his car and it cost $900 to get it out. If people have to pay for the cars, they cannot make bond or buy their own ticket home if they do get a voluntary deportation.
Some people who had driversÕ licences purchased vehicles. Then the law changed prohibiting them from any transactions at the Secretary of StateÕs office without a social security number. Now they cannot transfer titles, buy tags, change addresses, etc.
ASHAMED OF STATE AND COUNTRY
Never in my life have I been so ashamed of this state and this country. It is very hard to focus on anything else while our neighbors are being attacked without provocation or notice and locked up with no due process under any law. If these are not human rights violations, what are?
Several of the people in the raid described above are U.S. citizens. The ICE agents demanded their papers, which they do not have because they were born here. These children will remember this for a long time. Who are these agents? Are they returning Iraq war vets? Where are they being trained?
Why are there no Spanish-speaking people at the jails to field calls from family members? How can jail personnel communicate with detainees?
What is the avenue for investigation of human rights violations against the people, in the community and in the hands of the government and contractors when the people are detained? Who will take this up?
Why do agents scream and curse at children and adults who are no threat?
'WHY AREN'T YOU HOME WITH US?'
Thanks to Maureen Taylor of the Welfare Rights Organization for getting the utilities back on for the wife and children of a man who is scheduled to be deported this week. They have two daughters, ages four and six. I accompanied them to court to say goodbye to their father, whom they could only see on a video feed. The six-year-old said to her father, "Papi, why aren't you home with us? I want you to come home."
The father, who was seen by all the people in the courtroom, wept silently while the judge handed down the verdict; he would be deported immediately due to prior stops by immigration. He had gone home to his mother's funeral in July and gotten caught on the return trip in Texas. He was coming home to sell his house and pick up his wife and two daughters, but he will go ahead of them and she is left here to handle the sale of the house, the utility connections, work to get enough money to make the trip with the two kids, and hope not to get detained and deported, putting further trauma on the little girls.
This is a lot to handle with a broken heart and inability to speak English. Everywhere immigrants go they are under attack. Every move they make is dangerous, going to work, going to get dog food, going to mass, getting the kids from school, or even sleeping in your own bed at two in the morning. ICE can come in with a battering ram and scream obscenities at your children and hold them at gunpoint. At one time, crackheads and street thugs were our biggest worry here. Now it is all law enforcement in any uniform. It's a free-for-all against immigrants. We are the only ones who can turn this around. If we don't, we will all end up in detention.
In defiant hope.
--Elena Herrada
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